Treatment Of The Wicked

Are you not from eternity, O LORD, my holy God, immortal?  O LORD, you have marked him for judgment, O Rock, you have readied him punishment!  Too pure are your eyes to look upon evil, and the sight of misery you cannot endure. Why, then, do you gaze on the faithless in silence while the wicked man devours one more just than himself?  

You have made man like the fish of the sea, like creeping things without a ruler.  He brings them all up with his hook, he hauls them away with his net, He gathers them in his seine; and so he rejoices and exults.  Therefore he sacrifices to his net, and burns incense to his seine; for thanks to them his portion is generous, and his repast sumptuous.  Shall he, then, keep on brandishing his sword to slay peoples without mercy? 

This passage from our first reading are words attributed to the prophet Habakkuk who questions God about divine justice and God’s treatment of the wicked.   In this case, Habakkuk complains about the oppression of Israelites by the Chaldeans – a people from southern Mesopotamia and Babylon who replaced the Assyrians as masters of the ancient Near East in the late 7th- early 6th century BC. 

Seems like we all could say the words of Habakkuk about many of today’s so-called leaders who are simply wicked and treat their people as nothing more than mute fish hooked and hauled away by those who slay their people without mercy.   Our world does not lack cruel and arrogant men brandishing their swords, war-mongering, and devouring others through greed and cruelty.

The Lord answers Habakkuk by saying: For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; If it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late. The rash man has no integrity; but the just man, because of his faith, shall live.  

So, the Lord, according to Habakkuk, replies we should have faith and trust.  For many of us that’s all we think we can do    However, we must all remember that while we have no swords to brandish we do have the right and power of our votes and pocketbooks to hold our government and financial leaders accountable.

We are not fish to be gathered in seines.  We are people who show mercy and expect our leaders to do the same in the name of God’s justice.   Today’s Chaldeans should not be allowed to rejoice and burn the incense they call profit and self-service at our nation’s expense.   Habakkuk’s words are truly prophetic. 

Deacon David Pierce